Tara Road (56 page)

'I love you, Annie.'

'Are you drunk, Mam?'

'Of course I'm not drunk. Why do you ask?'

'I asked you did you read a book and you said you loved me. That's not a conversation.'

'No, but it's a fact.'

'Well I suppose, thank you, Mam. Thanks anyway.'

'And you? Do you perhaps love me?'

'You've been too long in America, Mam,' said Annie.

Danny Lynch was standing on the steps ringing the doorbell of what used to be his own house.

Marilyn, kneeling under the huge tree inside the gate, was invisible to him as he stood fidgeting and looking at his watch. He was a handsome man with all that nervous energy that she remembered from years back but now there was something else, something she had seen in the restaurant that night. Something anxious, almost hunted. Then he took out some door keys and let himself in. Marilyn had been about to get up and approach him but now she moved very sharply from her planting and ran lightly up to the house and followed him inside.

He was standing in the front room looking around. He called out: 'It's only me, Danny Lynch.'

'You startled me,' she said with her hand on her chest, pretending a great sense of alarm and shock. After all if she had come in without knowing he was inside she would have been very shocked.

'I'm sorry, I did ring the bell but there was no answer. And you're Marilyn. You're very welcome to Ireland.' Despite his restlessness he had great charm. He looked at her as he welcomed her. He was a man who would look at every woman he talked to and make them feel special. That's why she had remembered him, after all, when she had forgotten so many other people.

'Thank you,' she said.

'And you're happy here?' He looked around the room, taking it all in as if he were going to do an examination on its contents.

'Very. Who wouldn't be?' She wished she hadn't said that. Danny Lynch had obviously not been happy enough to stay here. Why, out of courtesy, had she made that stupid remark?

He didn't seem to have noticed it. 'My daughter says you've been very kind to her.'

'She's a delightful girl. I hope she and Brian will enjoy visiting my home as much as I like being in theirs.'

'It's a great opportunity for them. When I was Brian's age I had only been ten miles down the road.' He was very engaging.

And yet she didn't like the fact that he had let himself in. 'I didn't actually know that there was another key to the house out. I thought Gertie and I had the only two.'

'Well, it's not exactly having a key out,' he said. 'Not my having one surely?'

'No, it's just I misunderstood, that's all. I didn't realise that you come and go here, Danny. There were very precise notes about Colm having a key to the back gate and everything. I'll tell Ria that she forgot to tell me about you and how I thought you were an intruder.' She laughed at the silly mistake but she watched him carefully at the same time.

He understood what she was saying. Carefully he took the key to Tara Road off his key-ring and laid it on the table beside the bowl of roses. 'I don't come and go actually. It was just today I needed something and since you weren't in I thoughtGCa well you know, old habits die hard. It was my front door for a long time.' His smile and apology were practised but none the less genuine.

'Of course.' She was gracious, she could afford to be. She had won in this little battle, she had got Ria's doorkey back too. 'And what was it you wanted?'

'The car keys actually. Mine has packed up so I need to take the second car.'

'Ria's car?'

'The second car, yes.'

'For how long? I'd need it back in an hour.'

'No, I mean take it, for the duration,'

'Oh that's impossible,' she said pleasantly.

'What do you mean?'

'I mean I paid the insurance company an extra premium to cover my driving that car for eight weeks. Ria will be driving your children around Connecticut in my car. My husband can't suddenly appear and claim the car from herGCa' She paused. The rest of the sentence hung there unspoken.

T'm sorry, Marilyn, very sorry if you'll be inconvenienced but I have to have it. You don't need it, you're here all day digging in the garden. I have to go out and make calls on people, earn a living.'

'I'm sure your company will provide you with another car.'

'It suits me to have this one, and since you don't needGCa'

'Excuse me, you don't know what I need a car for. Today as it happens I'm meeting Colm to arrange that some organic fertiliser for your garden be delivered, and the nursery where we are meeting is not on a bus route. I am driving your first mother-in-law and three old ladies from St Rita's to a bridge tournament in Dalkey. Then I'm picking up your daughter and son and driving them to meet your second mother-in-law, with whom you have apparently had some quarrel, for swimming lessons. Then I meet Rosemary Ryan, who has been trying to get in touch with you urgently by the way, and she and I are going to a charity fashion show. I agreed to drive.' He looked at her open-mouthed. 'So can we now agree that regretfully there isn't a question of my giving you Ria's car?' Marilyn asked.

'Danny?'

'Jesus, Barney, where are you?'

Barney laughed. 'I told you, a business trip.'

'No, that's what we tell the bank, the suppliers, other people, it's not what you tell me.'

'That's exactly what I'm doing, on the business of raising money.'

'And tell me you've managed to raise some, Barney, because otherwise we're going to lose two contracts this afternoon.'

'Easy, easy. It's raised.'

'Where are you?'

'It doesn't matter, ring Larry at the bank and check. The money's there.'

'It wasn't there an hour ago.'

'It's there now.'

'Where are you, Barney?'

'I'm in Malaga,' Barney McCarthy said and hung up.

Danny was shaking. He hadn't the courage to ring the bank. Suppose Larry said he knew nothing of any money. Suppose Barney was in the south of Spain with Polly and wasn't coming back. It was preposterous of course but then people did that sort of thing. They left their wives and children without a backward glance. Hadn't he done it himself?

'Ms Ryan on the line for you, again,' the secretary said to him, rolling her eyes to heaven, pleading with him to take the call this time.

'Put her through. Sweetheart, how are you?' he said.

'Five calls, Danny, what's this?' Her voice was clipped.

'It's been hell in here.'

'So I read in the papers and hear everywhere,' she said.

'It's okay now, we're out of the fire.'

'Says who?'

'Says Barney. He's saying it from Spain, rather alarmingly.'

Rosemary laughed and Danny relaxed.

'We have to meet. There are a few things we must talk about.'

'Very difficult, sweetheart.'

'Tonight I'm going to one of Mona's dreary charity things with the woman who's living in your house.'

'Marilyn?'

'Yes. Have you met her?'

'I don't like her, she's a real ball-breaker.'

'Come round after ten,' Rosemary said and hung up.

Somewhere Danny found the courage to ring the bank. He must sound cheerful and confident.

'Hi Larry, Danny Lynch here. Is the red alert over? Can we come out of the bunkers?'

'Yes, some last-ditch Mafia money turned up.'

Danny went weak with relief but he pretended to be shocked. 'Larry, is that any way to talk to respectable property people?'

'There are some respectable property people, you and Barney aren't amongst them.'

'Why are you being so heavy?' Danny was startled.

'He left a lot of small people who could ill afford it without their cash, and then when it started to get ropey he went down to the Costa del Crime and got some laundered drug money from his pals.'

'We don't know that, Larry.'

'We do.'

Danny remembered hearing that Larry's son was in a de-tox centre. He would have very strong feelings about money that might have been made through the sale of heroin.

Greg called Marilyn. 'No reason. Just to chat. I miss the e-mails.'

'So do I, but I gather Ria's making great progress on my little laptop. She sent an e-mail to Rosemary Ryan, a woman hereGCoI'm going out to a fashion show with her shortlyGCoand one to her ex-husband's office. They nearly collapsed.'

'Oh I know, she sends them to me too.'

'She does? What about?'

'Oh this and thatGCa arrangements for the alumni weekendGCa Andy will be coming up too, and her children will be there, so it will be a full house.'

'Yes.' Marilyn couldn't quite explain why this slightly irritated her, but it did.

'Anyway, she seems to be getting on very well, she's cooking in John and Gerry's a couple of hours a day.'

'She's not!GCO

'Yes. Isn't she amazing? And Henry told me that he and Heidi were at a dinner party round thereGCa'

'Round where?'

'In the house. In Tudor Drive. There were eight of them apparently andGCa'

'In our house? She had eight people in our house? To dinner?'

'Well, she knows them all pretty well now. Carlotta comes in for a swim every morning, Heidi's round there for coffee after work. It didn't take her longGCa'

'It did not,' said Marilyn grimly.

Mona McCarthy was on the committee. She sat smiling at the desk and had their tickets ready for them when they went in. People often wondered how much she knew about her husband's activities both in business and in his private life. But they would never learn from Mona's large face. There were no hints there. A big serene woman, dull even, constantly raising money for good causes. It might have been trying to put something back in order to compensate for the many sharp deals where Barney might have taken too much out.

'And a glass of champagne?' she offered.

'I'd love one,' Rosemary said. 'And I have a chauffeur.' She introduced Marilyn.

Marilyn was being unusually silent tonight as if she were thinking about something miles away.

Mona's face lit up. 'And little Ria's out in your house at the moment, isn't she?'

Marilyn nodded with a bright smile. She was wondering what percentage of the population of Westville was now installed in Tudor Drive tonight. Oh no, it was just after lunch back home, maybe a buffet party for thirty at the swimming pool. But she had to say something pleasant. 'Yes, I gather she's having a good time, settling in well.'

Mona was pleased. 'She really needs that, how wonderful you were able to provide it for her.'

'She's even got a job, I hear, in our local gourmet shop.' Marilyn wondered whether there was a tinny note in her voice, and she wondered further why there should be.

'Ria should have got a job years ago,' Rosemary said. 'That's why she lost everything she had.'

'She didn't lose everything,' Mona said quietly. 'She still has the children.'

Rosemary realised it had not been the right remark to make in front of the stay-at-home wife of Barney McCarthy who was in the south of Spain with his mistress. 'Yes, of course. That's right, she has the children, and of course the house.'

'Do you think that Danny Lynch's liaison, for want of a better word, isGCa permanent?' Marilyn wondered.

'No way,' Rosemary said.

'Not at all,' Mona said at the same time.

'And would Ria have him back when it does end, do you think?' Marilyn couldn't believe that she was asking these personal questions. Marilyn who was legendary about her reserve had changed entirely in this country, she had become a blabbermouth and busybody in a matter of weeks.

'Oh, I think so,' Mona said.

'No question of it,' said Rosemary.

If everyone seemed so sureGCa if it were all going to end with everyone back in their own boxes as they had beenGCa then what a terrible amount of pain and hurt for the whole summer! And what would happen to the baby that was waiting to be born?

As they drove back through the warm Dublin night Marilyn talked easily to Rosemary. She spoke about Greg out in Hawaii. At no stage did she give any explanation why he was on one side of the earth and she was on the other.

"When Marilyn stopped the car outside Number 32 Rosemary thanked her for the lift. 'It was wonderful, it meant I could have four glasses of champagne. And I loved them. I would ask you in for coffee but I have such an early startGCa I thought I'd give the plants in the garden a drink of water and then go to bed.'

'Heavens no, and I want to get an early night too.'

Marilyn drove back and parked the car outside Number 16.

Just then she remembered that she had left the signed programmes she had got for Annie in Rosemary's purse. Annie and her friend Kitty were mad about two of the models. Marilyn had gone to the trouble to get the right ones, now she had stupidly left them in Rosemary's elegant black leather bag. She looked at her watch. Rosemary wouldn't be in bed yet. She had only left her two minutes ago, she would be watering the garden. Marilyn would just run up the lane, it would be quicker. They didn't lock their back gate in Number 32.